Bsod

[Purinna]

I recently built a new pc and installed vista64 ultimate on it and I am having some issues with a game im playing. Warhammer online is the problem game and the issue im having is that for no apperant reason the game will at random intervals lock up and go to a BSOD. After about a minute my pc reboots and I log back in to windows to find a error box up stating windows has recovered from a error and this is the text in the details for it:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: a
BCP1: FFFFFA818450E0C8
BCP2: 0000000000000002
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: FFFFF80001EE9C6B
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini040309-02.dmp
C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-46285-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Temp\WERD123.tmp.version.txt

If needed here is link to my dxdiag report as well.

I have tried the easy stuff already to correct this problem: updating video and audio drivers, reinstalling the game, memory tests, disk checks, bios updates, verifying all updates for windows are current, and yet this BSOD persists. Additionally the only time this problem occurs is while playing warhammer. All other games work flawlessly. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[H2SO4]

If you copy "C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini040309-02.dmp" and a few of the other DMP files in that location to another folder, then zip 'em up and upload them here, someone might be able to help you by analysing those files with a debugger. They're summaries of the conditions around each crash.

 

[rive0108]

I recently built a new pc and installed vista64 ultimate on it and I am having some issues with a game im playing. Warhammer online is the problem game and the issue im having is that for no apperant reason the game will at random intervals lock up and go to a BSOD. After about a minute my pc reboots and I log back in to windows to find a error box up stating windows has recovered from a error and this is the text in the details for it:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: a
BCP1: FFFFFA818450E0C8
BCP2: 0000000000000002
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: FFFFF80001EE9C6B
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini040309-02.dmp
C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-46285-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Temp\WERD123.tmp.version.txt

If needed here is link to my dxdiag report as well.

I have tried the easy stuff already to correct this problem: updating video and audio drivers, reinstalling the game, memory tests, disk checks, bios updates, verifying all updates for windows are current, and yet this BSOD persists. Additionally the only time this problem occurs is while playing warhammer. All other games work flawlessly. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

try this:
http://www.vistax64.com/software/219790-reading-bsod-crash-files.html#post1007622

 

[dk70]

Seems like this game is a very bad, check this Reporting Crashing/BSoD bugs - Please post here - Patch 1.2.0 Bugs - Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - Forums and if everything else is ok you probably have run in to a Warhammer bug or 2. Read all 4 pages.

You dont have latest Realtek drivers though - get them here http://www.vistax64.com/sound-audio/64250-latest-realtek-hd-audio-driver-version.html

Note that Gigabyte has updated bios for motherboard a few times http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=2989#anchor_os usually best to use the latest, if it aint broke dont fix it also goes...

Optimize and update away but also dig into Warhammer bugs.

 

[Purinna]

Holy Cow 3 replies. I think i just found my new home

H2S04 - Here is the link for those DMP files. Hopefully someone can check them out as you suggested. Of the three that were listed in the error window the only one I could actually find was the dmp ones. The other two after that were not found anywhere. Also the folder that contained the one dmp file actually had two of them so I Just zipped them both up.

dk70 - I have reported the crashing/bsod problem already to mythic through the EA Support site and on thier site it says you can expect a reply in no less than 24 hours. It has been 5 days since I emailed them with my problem and I still have not received a reply. Some people have went 2 months and still not received a reply. The customer support thier is non existent and very poor so I expect to not ever hear back. Sadly I love the game and thus have tried finding help elswhere with the specific errors windows is reporting, ultimatly leading me to find this forum.

I have also already posted on thier support forums (see my link) as you suggested and mythics responce thier was to try something that I have already done, which leads me to believe that they didnt even read my help thread and just spammed me with some canned reply.

There are a couple other major warhammer forums for support from other players, namely "warhammer alliance" and the "VN forums" as well were I have also posted for help on this issue and I haven't found a working fix with any of those forums as well.

The dxdiag report I posted was from before updating my audio drivers and bios with @BIOS (oops). My mistake I should have posted a new one so here it is. Those updates were performed about 2 or 3 days ago.

rive0108 - Your reply looks technical beyond my ability but as desperate as I am to correct this problem or at least find a definate cause, I am going to start mucking my way through it right now. Wish me luck and I will post back in a bit on how it goes

I appreciate everyones replies. Thank you.

 

[Purinna]

try this:
http://www.vistax64.com/software/219790-reading-bsod-crash-files.html#post1007622

I followed that link and downloaded the debugging tool for my version of windows... vista 64-bit...
Current Release version 6.11.1.404 - March 27, 2009
and when I attempted to install it, I got an error message saying it was not compatible with my processor type?

 

[Purinna]

PS.. seems the 32 bit version is installing just fine.. continuing on. But should i be using the 32-bit version when I have vista 64-bit installed?

 

[H2SO4]

The minidumps suggest that your crashes are due to very low-level memory corruption.

Are you overclocking?

Is the machine adequately cooled?

It's still possible that this is a software issue, but I'd give you at least a 80% likelihood of hardware being the cause, based on the dumps. Don't worry too much about the "it only happens when I run app XYZ" thing. That app/game may cause additional load, or the traversal of codepaths not otherwise taken, but the game itself nas no ability to cause a BSoD directly - it doesn't contain drivers. To cause a BSoD, you have to be a kernel-mode driver... or broken hardware.

 

[H2SO4]

Ah, you also have a known-bad memory corruptor driver on there. This one:

Image path: \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\secdrv.SYS
Image name: secdrv.SYS
Timestamp: Wed Sep 13 23:18:38 2006 (4508052E)

That's a Macrovision "SafeDisc" driver and it may be responsible for your BSoD problems. I believe it's installed by some games as part of a copy-protection mechanism. Try removing it temporarily and then testing again with that driver out of the picture.

=================

You know how I said games can't directly cause BSoDs because they don't install kernel-mode drivers? Well one of your games did. Given that one game is consistently crashing, it may be the one which installed SafeDisc and it's secdrv.sys driver. If you deactivate the driver, the game may not run, but it's worth a shot. To deactivate it, from an elevated CMD prompt:

SC CONFIG SECDRV START= DISABLED

Note the space just after the equals sign and the lack of space just before it.

 

[Purinna]

Ah, you also have a known-bad memory corruptor driver on there. This one:

Image path: \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\secdrv.SYS
Image name: secdrv.SYS
Timestamp: Wed Sep 13 23:18:38 2006 (4508052E)

That's a Macrovision "SafeDisc" driver and it may be responsible for your BSoD problems. I believe it's installed by some games as part of a copy-protection mechanism. Try removing it temporarily and then testing again with that driver out of the picture.

=================

You know how I said games can't directly cause BSoDs because they don't install kernel-mode drivers? Well one of your games did. Given that one game is consistently crashing, it may be the one which installed SafeDisc and it's secdrv.sys driver. If you deactivate the driver, the game may not run, but it's worth a shot. To deactivate it, from an elevated CMD prompt:

SC CONFIG SECDRV START= DISABLED

Note the space just after the equals sign and the lack of space just before it.

I am not where I can play the game and change that right this minute... I'm mowing the lawn actually but as soon as this is done I will give it a whirl.

Ps.. for cooling my video card runs on average at 52 degrees under load and I dont have a way to monitor my cpu temp but when I installed it I used arctic silver 5 thermal compound between the cpu and the cpu fan. cpu fan is not stock but instead a Zalman 9500 cooler and I also have 2 120mm fans on the back, 2 on the front to creat suction from the front to exhaust out the back. I also have a 80mm fan on the side door directly over the cpu cooler blowing in.

 

[H2SO4]

Mowing the lawn - my 2,984,328,310,129th favourite activity.

I did a bit more light reading into this because I'm curious. SecDrv.sys appears to be involved in decrypting an otherwise encrypted game binary (executable) so that it can look "normal" when necessay and thus run when the user double-clicks the game icon. With SecDrv deactivated, the game would presumably outright fail to start because the binary would remain visible only in its on-disk encrypted state which is unplayable.

The main questions then become:

1) Is SecDrv the real culprit? It's possible, but I can't be sure based on those minidumps. You'd have to enable an OS memory-tracking mechanism known as "special pool" and then wait for the next crash to find out more. It becomes a bit complex for forum-based troubleshooting.

2) Is Warthingy the game which actually installed SecDrv (Macromedia SafeDisc)? If so, presumably that means it's encrypted and it won't run at all without it. You can still try that "start= disabled" line above as a test. (It requires a reboot.) Use the same thing with "start= auto" to re-enable it if you need to.

3) Is there a newer version of SecDrv available - one which doesn't corrupt memory because the bug has been fixed? I don't know the answer, but if Warthingy is that important to you, you might want to do some research here

 

[Purinna]

SC CONFIG SECDRV START= DISABLED

Uninstalled all my games (except the ones that come with vista) first to make sure.

Did as instructed in elevated command prompt and then restarted the pc. Launched warhammer and I logged in corrrectly and played for about 5 minutes and the game just locked up. Had to hold the power button in to reset the pc. Logged into warhammer again for about 5 minutes before locking up again. Sad sad I had hoped this was the fix Set it back to auto just so i can play for more than 5 minutes

Whats next?

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

Put a multimeter on your power supply yellow+ and black-. Does your voltage drop below 12V? 11.83V or below means you need a better power supply.

 

[H2SO4]

If the game's behaviour is distinctly different with SecDrv disabled, that's obviously significant. Try checking for later versions of Macromedia's "SafeDisc". That's the copyright-enforcement mechanism apparently used to protect your game, and I suspect its secdrv.sys kernel-mode driver may be what's corrupting the low-level memory management structures on your machine. In fact, that driver is known to cause issues (as a web search will reveal).

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

Graphics lockup could be power or heat related also.

 

[Purinna]

I dont have a multimeter to check for voltages. However i took my sons psu out of his pc and put it in this one and it made no difference. His is a 750w where the one in this pc was only 650w.

While I had the case open I pulled the video card out of the bottom pcie slot and put it in the top pcie slot for better ventilation since the bottom of the card was only about an inch off the chasis base. Made no diffference.

If it were power or heat related then crysis would cause issues much sooner than warhammer would. Crysis is currently rated as one of the most demanding games in the pc gamer industry. Its graphics and chaos engine are huge resource hogs and it runs like a champ all the time.

If the game's behaviour is distinctly different with SecDrv disabled, that's obviously significant. Try checking for later versions of Macromedia's "SafeDisc". That's the copyright-enforcement mechanism apparently used to protect your game, and I suspect its secdrv.sys kernel-mode driver may be what's corrupting the low-level memory management structures on your machine. In fact, that driver is known to cause issues (as a web search will reveal).

I have googled till my fingers fall off and cant seem to find any type of updates or downloads for "SafeDisc". Allot of the stuff I did read concerning "SafeDisc" is that it involves copyright-enforcement for discs and warhammer does not run with a disc in the tray and it also has no cd-key of any kind when installing. Its protection is that it is a MMO and can only be played online with a active subsciption that verifies when you log into there server. Not sure of that helps in identifying anything with this secdrv or not though?

Additionally to try and eliminate any other software causing this problem I uninstalled all other programs not bundled with vista other than warhammer, ventrillo, avg, i-tunes, and ms-office. Uninstalling everything but those made no difference as well. Here is my last crash error and dmp file:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 3b
BCP1: 00000000C0000005
BCP2: FFFFF800021249C5
BCP3: FFFFFA600579DC40
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini040409-02.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-132195-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\Temp\WER2D85.tmp.version.txt

DMP file

 

[dk70]

dk70 - I have reported the crashing/bsod problem already to mythic through the EA Support site and on thier site it says you can expect a reply in no less than 24 hours. It has been 5 days since I emailed them with my problem and I still have not received a reply. Some people have went 2 months and still not received a reply. The customer support thier is non existent and very poor so I expect to not ever hear back. Sadly I love the game and thus have tried finding help elswhere with the specific errors windows is reporting, ultimatly leading me to find this forum.

Yeah I know such game forums rarely offer 1, 2, 3 solutions but with dig in I meant search until you puke. To avoid having to run around in circles if game is only problem. Can be a minor weird thing like it works when running in windows mode, you need updating that secure stuff or whatever. You should look that up on warhammer forums.

Will not hurt if you run Prime 95, always good advise if no clue Get it here Free Software - GIMPS unzip, start up, pick torture test and "blend" mode. Let it run for hours or until it crash. Is a good sign computer is working outside Warhammer but some processes/games tricker memory errors more than others. Running this sensitive memory test rules that out, more or less. Crash to desktop might be more likely than bsod with an almost perfect computer but can never tell with memory - dumps pointing at safedisc can be accurate or not. A little memory timing bug you only see in this game can show itself in many ways. Why P95 is useful.

I remember when UnReal 2004 (I think) came out. Ataris forum were full of strange bugs, crashes. A good part of those where due to overclocking, memory problems because game somehow is more than usual sensitive to those. Sticky thread about Memtest86 and P95 popped up

Such invisible problems can also be fixed with biosupgrades, http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=2989#anchor_os notice "Enhance DDR compatibility" and same for video card. Does not have to matter but can. Check what version you have and if updating make sense, likely to fix things. Gigabyte should have tools for flashing bios if needed - can do it in Windows or put it on a flash drive and do it when computer boots up.

Last dump mentions "PROCESS_NAME: audiodg.exe" if this testing, updating give meaning next will be something else and so on. Did you update audio drivers? Btw, in dxdiag report it says "Generic PnP Monitor" - does Windows update not offer a monitor "driver"? one of those things...

 

[lordbob75]

Hello Purinna and gang,

Time to drop in my two cents (let me go get my giant pennies, I have a lot to say). 0.o

First off, is WaR the only game with the problem? You mentioned Crysis. How does that run? If there are other games with problems, uninstall WaR, and try to run them.

Second: Judging by the stop codes, I would guess at bad RAM, or a memory managent error (This error has been linked to excessive paged pool usage and may occur due to user-mode graphics drivers crossing over and passing bad data to the kernel code), as well as a bad Video Driver.

Try uninstalling, and reinstalling your graphics drivers. Make sure to fill in your PC specs, so we can all see what your rig is running.

If the video driver does nothing, try grabbing some new RAM from another computer or something (I don't think it will change, but its worth a try right?)

Just so you know, I highly doubt this error was caused by overheating (not of the video or CPU anyways) and it probably wasn't the RAM, though it never hurts to check that.

I am assuming also that you know the disc is good, and have it working on another computer?

AHA. Just read your first post again, and the xA error helps. That also points to a bad driver. I'm going to guess at the video driver. Definitely download an update or just get it from the official website.

Let us know what you do, and how it works.

Also, when you post (check my link in my sig) make sure you name the thread something meaningful. Your lucky we are curious and not too busy, or we would not have looked. You could have named your thread "WaR BSOD code xA" or something similar.

~Lordbob

 

[H2SO4]

Will not hurt if you run Prime 95, always good advise if no clue Get it here Free Software - GIMPS unzip, start up, pick torture test and "blend" mode. Let it run for hours or until it crash. Is a good sign computer is working outside Warhammer but some processes/games tricker memory errors more than others. Running this sensitive memory test rules that out, more or less.

Agreed, it's entirely possible that this is a hardware problem, despite the fact that it visibly manifests itself in one game only.

Crash to desktop might be more likely than bsod with an almost perfect computer but can never tell with memory - dumps pointing at safedisc can be accurate or not. A little memory timing bug you only see in this game can show itself in many ways. Why P95 is useful.

The minidumps don't actually point at SafeDisc. That's my extrapolation from the type of crash I'm seeing and the list of loaded drivers. If this is not hardware, then one of these drivers is almost certainly the culprit:

start end module name
fffff960`00620000 fffff960`00631000 cdd unavailable (00000000)
fffffa60`0278f000 fffffa60`02798000 GEARAspiWDM Wed Apr 09 05:15:59 2008 (47FBC46F)
fffffa60`02798000 fffffa60`027c8000 Rtlh64 Thu Oct 16 18:08:07 2008 (48F6E857)
fffffa60`02a01000 fffffa60`02f5b000 atikmdag Thu Feb 26 08:54:32 2009 (49A5BE18)
fffffa60`03469000 fffffa60`03488000 AtiHdmi Thu Feb 19 23:25:41 2009 (499D4FC5)
fffffa60`0355a000 fffffa60`0357e000 avgtdia Mon Mar 23 21:35:48 2009 (49C76604)
fffffa60`04407000 fffffa60`045aeb80 RTKVHD64 Tue Mar 24 22:34:26 2009 (49C8C542)
fffffa60`04985000 fffffa60`0498b780 avgmfx64 Wed Dec 10 22:49:13 2008 (493FACB9)
fffffa60`0498c000 fffffa60`049f7000 avgldx64 Thu Feb 19 22:47:31 2009 (499D46D3)
fffffa60`06758000 fffffa60`06763000 secdrv Wed Sep 13 23:18:38 2006 (4508052E)

SecDrv.sys is a "probable", based on its past history, but any kernel-mode driver has the potential to cause this type of corruption:

Child-SP RetAddr Call Site
fffffa60`0579e4a0 fffff800`02124823 nt!ObpWaitForMultipleObjects+0x165
fffffa60`0579e960 fffff800`01ea8df3 nt!NtWaitForMultipleObjects+0xe2
fffffa60`0579ebb0 00000000`77c1602a nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
00000000`02baf878 00000000`00000000 0x77c1602a

The box crashed while parsing info about objects to be waited for - very probably due to pool corruption.

To the OP: a mechanism called "special pool" may provide more info in the next crash dump. To enable special pool, you need to add two registry values and then reboot:

Location: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management"

Value Name: PoolTag
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0x2A

Value Name: PoolTagOverruns
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1

 

[lordbob75]

Will not hurt if you run Prime 95, always good advise if no clue Get it here Free Software - GIMPS unzip, start up, pick torture test and "blend" mode. Let it run for hours or until it crash. Is a good sign computer is working outside Warhammer but some processes/games tricker memory errors more than others. Running this sensitive memory test rules that out, more or less.

Agreed, it's entirely possible that this is a hardware problem, despite the fact that it visibly manifests itself in one game only.

Crash to desktop might be more likely than bsod with an almost perfect computer but can never tell with memory - dumps pointing at safedisc can be accurate or not. A little memory timing bug you only see in this game can show itself in many ways. Why P95 is useful.

The minidumps don't actually point at SafeDisc. That's my extrapolation from the type of crash I'm seeing and the list of loaded drivers. If this is not hardware, then one of these drivers is almost certainly the culprit:

start end module name
fffff960`00620000 fffff960`00631000 cdd unavailable (00000000)
fffffa60`0278f000 fffffa60`02798000 GEARAspiWDM Wed Apr 09 05:15:59 2008 (47FBC46F)
fffffa60`02798000 fffffa60`027c8000 Rtlh64 Thu Oct 16 18:08:07 2008 (48F6E857)
fffffa60`02a01000 fffffa60`02f5b000 atikmdag Thu Feb 26 08:54:32 2009 (49A5BE18)
fffffa60`03469000 fffffa60`03488000 AtiHdmi Thu Feb 19 23:25:41 2009 (499D4FC5)
fffffa60`0355a000 fffffa60`0357e000 avgtdia Mon Mar 23 21:35:48 2009 (49C76604)
fffffa60`04407000 fffffa60`045aeb80 RTKVHD64 Tue Mar 24 22:34:26 2009 (49C8C542)
fffffa60`04985000 fffffa60`0498b780 avgmfx64 Wed Dec 10 22:49:13 2008 (493FACB9)
fffffa60`0498c000 fffffa60`049f7000 avgldx64 Thu Feb 19 22:47:31 2009 (499D46D3)
fffffa60`06758000 fffffa60`06763000 secdrv Wed Sep 13 23:18:38 2006 (4508052E)

SecDrv.sys is a "probable", based on its past history, but any kernel-mode driver has the potential to cause this type of corruption:

Child-SP RetAddr Call Site
fffffa60`0579e4a0 fffff800`02124823 nt!ObpWaitForMultipleObjects+0x165
fffffa60`0579e960 fffff800`01ea8df3 nt!NtWaitForMultipleObjects+0xe2
fffffa60`0579ebb0 00000000`77c1602a nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
00000000`02baf878 00000000`00000000 0x77c1602a

The box crashed while parsing info about objects to be waited for - very probably due to pool corruption.

To the OP: a mechanism called "special pool" may provide more info in the next crash dump. To enable special pool, you need to add two registry values and then reboot:

Location: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management"

Value Name: PoolTag
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0x2A

Value Name: PoolTagOverruns
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1

I think it points more to Video Driver corruption over Hardware.

Also, I see AVG in there a lot. Make sure it is allowing WaR through, or disable it when you play and see if that helps.

~Lordbob